Dorothy Cross

"Dorothy Cross is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, film, and photography. She proudly represented Ireland at the 1993 Venice Biennale.

Biography of Dorothy Cross

Dorothy Cross was born in 1956 in Cork, Ireland. From 1973 to 1974, she attended Crawford Municipal School of Art in Cork. Cross continued her education at Leicester Polytechnic, England, from 1974 to 1977. Additionally, she received an MFA in printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute in California, where she studied from 1980 to 1982.

Exhibiting consistently since the mid-1980s, Cross garnered mainstream public attention with her inaugural solo installation, "Ebb," showcased at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, Ireland. This was followed in 1991 by "Powerhouse," presented at the ICA in Philadelphia, the Hyde Gallery, Camden Arts Centre in London, and Kerlin Gallery in Dublin.

Cross's artworks have been exhibited in solo and group shows at various art institutions, including Frith Street Gallery, Kerlin Gallery, New Art Centre, Hugh Lane Gallery, P.P.O.W Gallery, Toledo Museum of Art, and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, among others. Moreover, her works can be found in numerous esteemed collections, such as The Arnolfini Trust, Bristol; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The National Gallery of Ireland; The Norton Collection, California, USA; Ulster Museum, Belfast; Limerick City Art Gallery, Limerick; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, USA, and many more.

Currently, Dorothy Cross lives and works in Connemara, Ireland. 

Dorothy Cross's Art Style

Dorothy Cross explores the connection between living beings and the natural world through her work in sculpture, film, and photography. Residing in Connemara, a rural area on Ireland's west coast, she perceives nature, the ocean, and the human body as dynamic sites of perpetual change and flux. Her works capture and utilize this fluidity and generative power, orchestrating unforeseen encounters among plants, animals, body parts, and everyday objects. The result is an array of strange, hybrid forms that span from the lyrical, sublime, and meditative to the erotic, humorous, and playful.

In her artworks, Cross artfully blends classical materials like Carrara marble, cast bronze, or gold leaf with discarded antiques, old boats, washed-up jellyfish, whale bones, or animal skins found on the shore. For example, in 1991, she saw a sieve made from a stretched cow's udder. Later, she began producing sculptural works using cured cowhide, cow udders, and stuffed snakes to explore the cultural and symbolic meaning of sexuality and subjectivity across various cultures.

Cross's artworks draw upon a rich array of symbolic associations from various cultures, enabling an exploration of the construction of religious, social, and sexual norms, subjectivity, memory, and vulnerability.